And Then My Eyeballs Froze

Sometime around 6AM this morning the wind shifted from the North to the Southwest/West and picked up speed. The house is not nearly as protected from the Southern side for obvious reasons and the wife had just woke up and I decided to catch another hour or two of sleep.

Big mistake.

When I did wake up the house was once again down to 50 degrees and the Mrs. is about in tears demanding I take her to work so she can get warm. I finally got the truck started and almost got stuck after dropping her off but at least she is out of my hair for a few hours. I am thinking about just calling and telling her to rent a hotel room for the night or something until this cold snap breaks.

Someone, and I won't mention names, has thwarted my drip method and the cold line froze in the kitchen. That is just as well because for the first time ever the actual sewer line is frozen and the kitchen sink isn't draining anyway. So far it doesn't seem to be effecting the toilet or bathroom so I am guessing it just froze in the trap. I am attempting to handle that situation right now with a small space heater.

God I miss my bullet heater bad right now if I had it working none of this would have been an issue.

The basement is getting frozen because I don't have hay bales on the South side so the floors are freezing once again. This drafty old house is just not made for this kind of weather.

All the horses and sheep are fine. The wife captured one of the stray cats and brought her inside so she survived the night at least. The others made up of the family of four (Mother and three 1 year olds we couldn't find homes for) survived as well holed up where ever they go. I just saw the mother cat using the clear ground by the barn door to lure birds in when she would jump out trying to catch one.

This morning as I was helping my Mother feed the animals and pitching hay to the sheep the wind chill was so cold my face froze and I literally could not see out of my own eyeballs. All I could do was stumble to the waiting truck and place my face as close to the heater vent as possible and thaw myself out. Things are much better now though as the temps have climbed up to about -3 and the sun is shining. The house is once again back up into the lower 60's and rising and according to the forecast the temps should now continue to rise on into tomorrow.

It's still going to be another rough night tonight though until this arctic push breaks.

In about another hour or so I am going to try and get the tractor started and see if I can remove some of the drifts out of the driveway.

No telling how long it's gonna be before I have a working kitchen sink again now.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!